As March Madness Sweeps through SA, Players Won’t See a Penny

University of Michigan players warm up before the NCAA Final Four game against Loyola University.

As the NCAA Men’s Final Four kicked off in San Antonio Saturday, money poured into local hotels, restaurants, and retailers – not to mention the schools participating in the tournament, and the college athletics organization overseeing it all. But the one group not seeing any income were the players on the court.

Locally, an economic study projected that the Final Four would inject more than $185 million into the economy. About 70,000 people are expected to attend the championship game on Monday – between the University of Michigan and Villanova University, the culmination of three weeks and five rounds of televised games.

The NCAA’s television broadcast rights for the men’s basketball tournament was extended in 2016 for an additional $8.8 billion over eight years, ending in 2032. As for the athletes who compete on the hardwood, their compensation is typically limited to their tuition and cost of attendance, per NCAA rules.

Michigan’s fifth-year senior Duncan Robinson made note of the economic tensions that exist in college sports.

Scott Ball / Rivard Report

University of Michigan senior Duncan Robinson.

“I’ve kind of avoided answering this question my whole career. But the truth is I’m highly opinionated on it,” the 6-foot-8 Robinson said at a press conference Friday. “I think there are certainly some contradictions in college sports. And anybody that fails to acknowledge those is just turning their cheek to it.”

The most vocal proponents of so-called pay-for-play reform in the college ranks have been professional athletes – many of whom have recounted their struggles during college to pay for things like laundry and other basic needs.

While the controversy isn’t new, the question of whether players in the multibillion-dollar enterprise that is the NCAA are entitled to compensation in addition to a college education is gaining more notice.

In December, a U.S. District Court in California is due to take up the question of whether players should be paid.

The NCAA has held firm that college athletes are amateurs and, thus, students first.

“Principles of amateurism and student-athlete well-being are critical to college sports,” the association said in a Friday statement. “We look forward to proving at trial that the rules are essential to providing educational opportunities to nearly half a million student-athletes.”

The judge who will hear the case is Claudia Wilken, who presided over a 2015 trial that resulted in a win for the plaintiff, ex-UCLA player Ed O’Bannon, in an antitrust case against the NCAA. Wilken’s ruling opened the door for universities to cover not just their athletes’ tuition but their full cost of attending school, including transportation, childcare needs, and unusual medical expenses.

The O’Bannon vs. NCAA case signaled a triumph for many college athletes, but to St. Mary’s University School of Law professor David Grenardo, the measures do not go far enough. Grenardo is one of the most vocal critics of the NCAA’s stance on paying players.

A former Rice University football player, Grenardo has been studying models that could be used to bring major college athletes into the free market.

When Grenardo published an article titled “The Continued Exploitation of the College Athlete: Confessions of a Former College Athlete Turned Law Professor,” he said it was therapeutic to write about a topic that had long vexed him even though he had sought to avoid being the ex-athlete whose academic work centered on the pay-for-play issue.

“As I continued to read more stories and experienced things myself, at some point I couldn’t stand it,” Grenardo said.

When Grenardo worked for a law firm in Houston, he said he had an intern who played basketball at Rice. During the internship, a compliance officer at Rice told Grenardo that because he was a Rice alumnus he couldn’t buy the intern a $5 sandwich at Subway. That would classify as an “impermissible gift” under NCAA rules. He said that even if other staff members at the firm were to buy the intern a sandwich it could still be construed as such.

Then Grenardo read about boosters at the University of Alabama enticing head football coach Nick Saban to stay at the program by paying off the mortgage on his million-dollar home, and the seeming contradiction, in part, drove Grenardo to pursue academic research on the topic.

Later this year, the Pepperdine University Law Review is set to publish Grenardo’s free-market model for paying salaries to NCAA athletes who play high-grossing sports.

Under his model, Grenardo proposes a salary-cap-regulated system with payment simulations for NCAA football and basketball players.

A football program, for example, could be bound by a $3 million salary cap with four-star athletes – the second-highest rating for college recruits – making about $50,000 per year depending on the school. Three-star recruits could earn about $30,000, and two-star athletes about $20,000, according to the article.

Compensation could also be prorated for players who work their way up from reserve to starting roles, Grenardo said.

Scott Ball / Rivard Report

Players of Chicago Loyola University are featured on the wall of the Westin Hotel in downtown San Antonio.

Chase Tidwell, a former baseball coach at the University of the Incarnate Word, said that although he understands the argument, paying players is a slippery slope. Especially in smaller programs – such as UIW and New Mexico State University, where Tidwell has coached – athletic programs would not be able to absorb the cost of adding players to the payroll, he said.

Tidwell, who supported the addition of cost-of-attendance stipends, said outside of a few top-tier football programs, such as the University of Texas, most college football teams bleed schools of money.

“I don’t think it’s feasible,” Tidwell said. “It would destroy half of the programs in this country. They would quit playing football. I’m 100 percent certain on that.”

Grenardo said the NCAA’s cap on athlete compensation violates antitrust law. He thinks it’s time athletes get paid according to their free-market value.

“The only single group that is limited in how much they can make are the college athletes – the people who are producing the product on the field,” he said.

Ken Rodriguez contributed to this story.

Disclosure: St Mary’s University is a Rivard Report business member. For a full list of supporters, click here.

One thought on “As March Madness Sweeps through SA, Players Won’t See a Penny”

If this moves forward into being reality, payments should be made by the NCAA to the players. Schools shouldn’t be able to use athlete payments as recruiting/retainment tools that give them an advantage over other schools. The NCAA can decide how to pay students, maybe putting into consideration number of hours athletes put in for their sport per NCAA rules or cost of living considerations for the city/town the university is located in.

Student-athletes should definitely not be paid based on their potential or production, as suggested by Mr. Grenardo. This is not the free market as much as he’d like to wish it was! Most of all, that type of payment goes against the argument that student-athletes need a little bit more money to get by, voiding the need to have this discussion in the first place. The star football player doesn’t have any more need for extra money than the bench warming wrestler. Both are held to the same rules on earning money to fill in the gap. Any differences claimed by players (socio-economic backgrounds being equal) comes from want, not need.

All schools must contribute to an NCAA fund to make these payments based on profits reported to the IRS. This is meant to help the smaller schools, especially those in the red (who will still make payments but significantly smaller payments). High coaches salaries should count against a school after passing a threshold to keep a school from using salaries as a claim they don’t profit as much. Other operating expenses should also count against athletic profits after passing a threshold for the same reason.

Finally, the payments should be dispersed as loans. The general student population takes out loans to make ends meet also but also just to get to go to school. Loans can be 100% forgiven by the NCAA for any student who does not pursue a professional athletic career…for the student-athlete who truly was a student. Those that do go pro can have a percentage of their loan forgiven. 99% to 0% can be forgiven for these student-athletes based on a formula that takes into consideration the average pay for a player at that position over the average playing career length, the yearly salary negotiated on the rookie contract and endorsement potential. That star basketball player who leaves school with a shoe company endorsement doesn’t need help paying off a loan, especially when compared to the softball/baseball player who makes less than teacher pay playing for the local, minor league team.